Burn at the Stake
by tempusborealis
Summary: And so began the process of rebuilding. Pete pines for Sam and begins to move on.


He met his own tired eyes as he idly swished the razor in the opalescent water at the bottom of the bowl. With a heavy sigh he placed both hands on the counter and let his chin touch his chest. The razor was lost in the milky water and he could see the vanity lights reflected in the tiny drops on the beige Corian. He scrubbed his hand over his face. Smooth except for the most troubling parts - the worry lines between his eyes. As he sucked in air between his teeth, he observed the light lilac welts under his eyes and the fine web of wrinkles that had become more pronounced as of late. The window was cracked open and the wind tousled his toffee hair playfully. Even as his lungs inflated, the cool autumn air hearkening the coming of winter could do nothing for the lead in his ribcage beneath the brass of his badge.

His eyes unfocused and took in the room behind him. Last night he had marshaled all of his energy and scoured the bedroom. He had picked up all of the clothing he had let accrue in rumpled piles over the past week and pulled out a box from the garage. The edge of it now was in his sight, but he couldn't see the three letter word scrawled in marker on the top. It was mostly empty - her things had amounted to less in the living space than he had realized. He wasn't sure what to do with it yet, however. A trip to Colorado Springs was simply not going to happen at this point, and it would be silly to give it to Mark, living in California, to give to her. Back in the garage, then. Maybe in a month or two he could drop a line without his voice cracking.

Drop a line? Who was he kidding? She was too good for him and the quaint phrases normal people used. But through some brilliant happenstance she had loved him anyway. And she had, he knew. They had been happy for a time and she had been his queen. He was a better person because of her, and he knew he had to have the fortitude to keep that lesson with him, even if he couldn't have her. She put things in perspective, she and her fantastic job saving the world. How could he just call up this incredible woman who had rejected him and chat? Would her voice be tinged with regret, would her cadence be laced with pity? Or worse, would he hear the bustle of a home filed with cookery, laughter, and the smooth baritone of a silver-haired Lancelot?

A few stray shirts still littered the chair and bed behind him, remnants of a long few weeks. Sheets were still tangled at the end of the bed on the one side, making little blue bumps and valleys with sweet morning memories tucked in between. Had he changed the sheets? He wasn't sure, but he knew the pillow didn't smell of heather and warm glass any longer. Everything had to be scrubbed down now, or he wouldn't have the heart to do it later. And to have traces of her wasn't healthy, he knew. Though he knew too she would always linger under his epidermis for the rest of his life in invisible ink composed of longing, loneliness, and love. For the foreseeable future, the heat of happiness found in anything would bring that message of betrayal and loss into the visible spectrum.

Her departure from its halls hadn't made a great impact upon the rest of his house. It remained largely the same. It was only his innermost living space that saw the chaos and destructiveness she left in her wake as she quietly and brutally slipped out of his life. But he had snapped out of the lethargic stupor her absence had caused and was rebuilding. He would be for a while to come, but it was happening, this first step in healing. When he'd gotten his coffee earlier, the mahogany leather couch was warmed by the morning sun and gave off its cozy scent as the dust motes swirled above it. The white, beaten coffeemaker he'd had ever since he'd graduated college still made watery brew no matter how little liquid he poured in the top. He could hold onto this constancy.

Could he condemn her to burn at the stake? He wanted to, with a fervent desire borne of scorned ardor, but knew that he never could. They had come together suddenly and unexpectedly and there were so many beautiful and fantastic metaphors coming from the very star fields she traversed to describe how brilliant their binary light had been for him. But something that lustrous could never be grounded, could never be what he wanted, as much as he willed his love to make it so. He surveyed his tattered sanctum and knew he'd been lucky to cradle her in his clumsy, earthy hands for a brief time. She'd never really belonged to him and the kingdom of grass, soil, and water. She couldn't take root here. And so Arthur had let Guinevere be saved because he couldn't do the saving himself.


End file.
